The freedom of painting intuitively

A brief primer on intuitive painting + an invitation for you!

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There’s something incredibly freeing about intuitive painting. The ability to simply pick up the colors and materials that you are drawn to in the moment and make a glorious mess on the page. The more chaos you create on the page {which takes a fair bit of practice, let me tell you!}, the more you have to work off of.

There’s a spaciousness to this process, too. It’s all about building up layers of marks and colors, which gives you the freedom and the space to experiment, especially in the initial layers. Those first layers are where I often try out new color combinations, fool around with color mixing, and experiment with making marks in new and different ways.

If at any point I don’t like what’s happening on the page, I can simply paint over it!

The key, of course, is to not completely cover up the layers, but to let elements from the previous layers peek through, to tease out shapes and images and marks and interesting compositions or color combinations and see if and how they can be highlighted in the final image.

And then there is the process of introducing some calm into your painting. This is when your painting starts to speak to you, to tell you what it wants to become. There’s a fine dance here, between intuition and control. This is the stage at which you start to make more conscious choices, while remaining open to those quiet intuitive nudges.

This is also the stage of the process where intuitive messages can often start to come through. You may notice the hint of a symbol that is personally meaningful for you. A line from a song, a verse from a poem, ideas that emerge seemingly from nowhere — these are the moments of synchronicity, the dialogue between the painting and the Self.

Sometimes, the messages that come through can be profound. At other times, they can be simple and playful, like the message that came through with this whimsical, colorful, playful cat: let your inner child out to play!

Message received, loud and clear!

If you’re intrigued by intuitive painting, or have felt too intimidated to try it, join me for the free Make Create Express weekend retreat, where I show you just how freeing and easy the process can be! If you’d like to go deeper, sign up for the year-long class. In my lessons, I’ll take you through the process of painting an intuitive abstract and an intuitive figurative painting, with tons of tips, tricks, and ways to almost always end up with pieces that you love.

Make Create Express is a year long mixed media adventure that kicks off with a FREE Creative Retreat weekend (open to all). During the retreat, you will have access to some amazing art lessons from 24 teachers from around the world to inspire and encourage your own creativity. There is also an Early Bird Special for the year-long course that you wouldn’t want to miss! Find out more about the course and sign up here.